Also.. that's why I called this a race condition. Case the failure is captured after the ConnectionFactory is updated for some reason... you would have a NullPointerException. This is not a problem on the hopping... it's a matter of not finding anything on failoverMap what would cause a NPE. That's why I introduced the guessing routine and I will trust on the Hopping case the guess didn't find the right server. (unlikely to happen.. the guessRoutine seemed to be pretty good to me) View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4002531#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...